I think

Besides geeky glasses, one thing that looks incredibly comely on Asian skin is freckles.

The Collaboration

It's certainly not the first time that we have seen collaboration between art and fashion - topping the list that i can think off the top of my head is Andy Warhol who was one of the first contemporary artists to pioneer and blur the gap between art and life, the product of which process is the infamous Eau d'Andy and the other ensuing commercial(ized) items. Next we have Takeshi Murakami who unleashed the Multicolore Louis Vuitton (which would be dismissed as garish if it weren't for the logo LV). This is even more interesting that the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles was used as the venue to showcase the products line. I know that Murakami is a world-renowed artist and all, but the fact that the institutional and physical context of the museum as a place traditionally reserved for "artworks" now carries luxury items as undemocratic as LV at all makes such collabaration, its appropriateness aside, all the more outstanding.

Or, the unique case of Ed Ruscha, who i admire greatly, who shot and even posed as an icon for the "desirable" contemporary refined culture for Lord & Taylor's facelift. And recently the starchitect Zaha Hadid was commissioned to design the Chanel exhibit, the "Mobile Art" in Hong Kong. Of course, i know what this is all about - it is the exceptional artistic quality these people possess that lends the product greater legitimacy and status, transcending the conventional high-street luxury to the iconic artwork that now feels tangible and functional.

The reason I brought this up is that I was at a mall yesterday with my friends walking around from shop to shop. One of them wanted to get a new phone and resented me for not getting her an iphone from the states. When we were looking around in a phone shop, i suddenly spot this ultraglorious sleek Samsung phone designed by, well, Giorgio Armani which effortlessly stood out among the crowd in its amber glory. If i remember correctly the Prada LG phone was released not long ago, and the design is in fact pretty similar. what's with these two korean giant chaebols and their Asian markets? Anyways, this it phone is priced at 23,000 THB which is approx. 689 USD. To make the whole brand loyalty landscape even fiercer, this is a limited edition and only 3,000 such phones are available for sale in Thailand. yes, wth?! Since it was debuted in February this year, i'm sure not many are currently left in store to go around. It doesn't take the lady who holds the Multicolore Murakami LV in her nicely manicured hand to answer you why she's willing to spend thousands of dollars on a bag whose function/utility is not different from the next Macy's handbag. My pulsating itch to own that Armani Samsung it phone without even first learning its specifications says it all. It's all about the icon. It makes my mouth water.

I wonder how nice it would feel in my hand.

dude this is first rate.

New release by Som Ammara (featuring joey boy). sums up best the contemporary urban culture i live in. i like to see thai cultural status quo being challenged, conventions questioned, especially gender role and seniority. why should girls not go out and have fun and why is a younger person supposed to bow and apologise when he's not wrong in the least? so refreshing and self-righteous. and american. totally the mind of an age, in GWF Hegel's words. 

As if joblessness is not enough

Hi Napong,

I was delighted to hear from Myra Liwanag that you inquired about a Brown Club of Thailand.

Up to this point, the alumni community there has been somewhat informal.  If it were to become more formal, though, there are some interesting tools that Alumni Relations could provide to make the operation of an alumni club easier.  Last year, I met with Celia Sophonpanich ’83, and told her about some of these tools, but I think she has enough to do with BASC and is hoping for someone else to take up the idea of having a more formalized alumni club in Thailand.  With 68 alumni, a couple of events a year could be really nice!

If you would like to start something up, I would encourage you to let me know and we can get started on doing so.

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Jennifer

OMG what do i know as a fresh graduate and the youngest alumni class?! What about those 68 alums who are not only older, wiser, and also - uh - employed? not to mention tons of non-Thai Brown alums who live/work/travel in Thailand. why does the i'm looking forward to hearing from you sound particularly threatening this afternoon? 

My pad thai plate

Off to Saraburi for the weekend for my grandma's birthday. The weekend's highlight is i'll get to eat pad thai cooked by my mom as much as my stomach can stretch (a lot i tell ya). clearly food is the reason why i've been hitting the gym religiously since i've been back. still need to work off 2 more kg. but this weekend is a legitimate hiatus. will post a picture of what legit pad thai should look like. 

On vodka

In Sex and the City, after finding out that her boyfriend will not show up at their own wedding (held at the New York public library), a devastated Carrie Bradshaw returns to her apartment with her girlfriends who later hang around to console and keep her company. In a span of 5 seconds, I remember spotting one of the girls pour Skyy vodka and hand it to Bradshaw. It didn't dawn on me until much later - tonight in fact, on my bus ride home - that i have never in my life had Skyy vodka.

To be sure, the bottle design is winner. Very retro and simple, the minimalist sky-blue bottle exudes confident elegance, which should not be surprising since it's a relatively recent creation (in the 90's). But what's much more surprising, to me at least, is it's an American vodka. California to be precise. Not that i doubt the American taste or capacity or anything (ok, i do), but i have the impression that most of the hard liqueurs we consume are all imports. And Americans are better known for their beers. Anyways, maybe i should give it a try next chance i get...which is not happening anytime soon, since heavy taxes are imposed upon luxury items like automobiles, beauty products, perfumes, and of course booze and i don't wanna pay extra for something i could get for cheaper elsewhere (but where?). In passing, their website is also very nice. High resolution not required but earnestly recommended. 

Speaking of bottle design, this reminds me of one Swedish vodka whose bottle design is also very cool and patriotic - Svedka. Bold blue prints and a tiny Swedish flag. Again, I have yet to find out what it tastes like although I came this close to having a swig. I got a bottle from a liqueur store and left it at sunny's apartment... and last time i checked, it was nowhere to be found. um, hello? anyways, design-wise I still prefer Skyy because 1) its distinct signature blue is pretty stunning and 2) the Svedka bottle in many ways still yells Absolut. That said, I should not discourage myself from tasting them the next chance I get. I know you can't go wrong with Absolut or Smirnoff, but when it comes to sensory perception, some things are worth exploring. 

What about Greygoose? Meh…don’t know lah because I don’t take shots (weak I know). Supposed to be one of the best, I hear? I don’t know what the best vodka tastes like, but I’m sure as hell I’ve tasted one of the worst. Ohmygod I don’t even want to bother to recall the name. maybe I’ll google “cheap vodka” later or something. The taste is as bad as its garish design (plastic bottles, white plastic cap, gold engravings on some red label, 10 bucks, do the math). We mixed this shit in the drinks we sold at Machado parties. Hahaha owned! ( I think they serve Greygoose at Buxton. surprise?) I think it just tastes like bitter water, period. Other than that, come to think of it vodka is probably my ultimate favourite hard liqueur. I mean rum & coke is alright. Gin & tonic is refreshing and all. But nothing beats good ol’ screwdriver. I heard somewhere (food network?) that you should put a little club soda in it to add to the fuzz. Now I think I’m a little thirsty hmmmm…

If I had two extra hours a day

i would probably spend them reading. i remember saying the same thing to myself five years ago when i was cramming for the univ entrance exam, the bane of existence of all Thai highschoolers. (man am i so old). but it's different this time around. instead of spending these two imaginary hours studying like a high school gangster, i would simply read for pleasure or some kind of non-academic intellectual enrichment.

This is not a random wish seeing that i buy at least 4-5 magazines on a monthly basis. On top of those i also buy books (mostly fiction) and other periodicals every so often. At the moment for example i have three magazines and four-five paperbacks i have to devour. Worse yet, earlier i started The Foreign Student on my flight from new york to bangkok and.. left mid-way, well not even that far. This is not to mention the necessary future purchase which will take place...very soon. 

I think the thing is, i have problem with time management in general. i think i have adult ADD and seriously consider getting professional help from a shrink, to which idea my aunt said was "a little to late" since i am an adult and being able to identify the condition was enough lol. but i don't think i'm that old and my condition can be cured or at least prevented from deepening further. ohh god if only i could whip up a few more hours and have every shrink go jobless at a moment's notice.

twenty-something women come to New York City in search of the two L's

Labels and Love. or so begins Sex and the City with the voice of Carrie Bradshaw the protagonist of the infamous uberfeminine TV series-turned-film. so i saw it a few days ago and liked it. in the past i tried to bring myself to get addicted to the series (yes, it's a conscious effort) in hopes of at least understanding what about it that drew in such crazed fans single and married alike. as it turned out, i was somewhat disappointed because i got the impression (perhaps a wrong one) that the series was a little too much on the drama side. so, unlike the suburban Desperate Housewives  or recently the ultra-cosmopolitan socialite Cashmere Mafias, SATC failed to win me over, for it didn't have this sharp witty biting edge to it that i'm personally fond of as a viewer. 

To be sure, the movie version also doesn't possess such quality. But perhaps it's the cinematic pace of it that does the trick for me. Very swift, assured, and to the point, SATC managed to hold my undivided attention throughout the entire two-hourish session (quite a challenge if u know the ADD me). The protagonist's voiceover works really well as, uhm, the guiding voiceover and more importantly as the meta-structural self-reflection and doubt of the protagonist herself. 

The art direction is of course overwhelmingly praised. From the costumes, which naturally outshine other aesthetic elements, to settings (classy bars, cafes, and the New York public library) and lavish decors, the viewer can tell where a large part of the budget went. If the lives of these women can be described as superficial frivolity, what other alternative could have been employed to convey such decadence if not the dazzling of the actual "surface." Better yet, the dazzling display gets a little too, well, dazzling on occasions. Yes, i'm talking about the graphic scenes, all of which were made blurry by the censorship unit of Thailand's Ministry of Culture, the cultural watch-dog who is notorious for its history of banning movies, songs, and other media from Thailand and overseas alike. In a country where political democracy has been obsessively preached and fetishized (but not necessarily practiced), cultural democracy is suppressed and dictated to the extent that a ministry was established to inform the people of what is right and wrong culturally. If hypocrisy is not the right word to label the current state, i don't know which will. 

Despite the blurred scenes, SATC fortunately was not banned altogether. Given the number of Thai fans sworn by the TV series, to disallow the movie from our theaters would sure cause some roar. Much as I hate to compare the film version to its original version, for I believe there'll always be something lost "in translation" necessarily entailed in the cross-media appropriation/interpretation (which is not always a bad thing), lots of my friends think that the film does the series justice. Of course, I have no authority to comment on this seeing that I have yet to finish one episode of the show. But for what it's worth, I enjoyed it a lot. And this is not a "chick flick", mind you. because the ladies are no longer chicks? or the movie itself doesn't fall under that category? i'll ponder in my sleep. bonne nuit tout le monde. 

This is

Amazing.

"A creative way to cover a building for renovation"

source: ffffound.com

Home

Providence -> Newyork -> Bangkok
these past two weeks flew by me in a swift blur.

Yes. it's official. i graduated beautifully and now am kicking around at home. i have so much to say about graduation, but that needs breaking down into levels and issues. so it will eventuallyunfurl in the form of and/or as part of general reflection and tangents in which i talk about life. brown will now always be part of me. pictures are up on facebook. i decided to put some that can speak to me on a personal level, something so intimate it can blow me back to May, 2008 - the key month of my life where i felt most confused, daunted, and of course, proud and fulfilled.

Going out for the first time tomorrow since i've been back. getting dinner with amigos at Siam. what else?